I am sorry if I inadvertently triggered an off-topic discussion; At the time I posted the comment about the Victory above, I was primarily interested in the issue raised by Joe Vogel about the whether the New Yorker was or was not at one time the Victoria.

However, at the time of the posting, “Victory” was listed in the aka list for the New Yorker, and I could not find any support for that name. Quite possibly, Victory was confused with Victoria by someone in the past. It has since been deleted from the aka list above the headnote, but now my remark seems out of place. My attempt at killing two birds with one stone had an unintended result.

The New Yorker was definitely known as as the Victoria – (there’s a picture of it here; you may have to scroll up or down to see the building as it was and later in 1994): View link

The confusion is due to the fact that there was another Victoria Theatre – specifically Shea’s Victoria – which opened in 1910 and was a very large vaudeville house at 83 Victoria Street, near Richmond, so apparently, at least for awhile, Toronto may have had two Victoria theatres. Shea’s Victoria closed for some years as a theater (possibly made redundant after Shea’s opened the even larger Shea’s Hippodrome in 1914, and vaudeville was fading). It was then re-opened by Famous Players as the Victoria. This indeed was the Victoria that showed “Samson and Delilah”. In the meantime, the Victoria on Yonge changed names at least twice.

I am doubtful, though that the New Yorker was ever known as the Victory; the only Victory Theatre I can find was on Spadina.

I don’t think this theater was ever the Victoria. The Victoria (which opened in 1910) and the Embassy were in operation at the same time in the 1930s and 1940s, and the Victoria and the Astor were both in operation during the early 1950s. The Embassy did become the Astor, right around 1950. Also the Victoria was about twice the size of the Embassy or the Astor. I don’t know if the Victoria is listed here under a later name or not. If it is, it’s missing the Victoria aka. I’ve been unable to discover an address for it.

Here is a 1950 Boxoffice article about the reopening of the Victoria that year (lower right corner of page.) The Victoria was a Famous Players house. The Embassy/Astor was operated by Ben Ulster during this period.

I know I have seen photos of the New Yorker with the gorilla atop it, but not for many years.

It doubled as a live music venue and cinema for a time in the mid ‘70s, and played host to a Talking Heads/Ramones double bill amongst other shows that I have no knowledge of (I was at that Talking Heads/Ramones show, and TH drummer Chris Frantz told me in recent years that he remembers the gorilla on the roof!).

I was the senior projectionist at the Showcase between 1986 and the day it closed in 1991 and by far and away, this was the best booth I ever worked. It was a single with a platter, Vic-8 and CP-200 Sound, fully-manually operated, no automation of any kind. I vividly remember running The Last Emporer in 70mm for almost a year. Can’t say it was a favorite movie of mine, but I got a lot of reading done that year and made a ton of OT!

This was a very odd place to work. You parked down at the back of a side alley, climbed up a steel staircase and walked across the roof by the back of the booth—which was a set into the roof of the theatre. The throw was very short and on about a 15 degree angle, IIRC. We ran mostly art films with low attendance numbers as well as being a key theatre for the Festival every September. We had a number of World Premieres there in my time, too.

Here is the “Panasonic” as it looks now.
I took this photo July 21st 2008.
You can see the old frontage under the “Mesh” but I think the frontage is all that is left I went around the back and it appears to be total modern.

This theatre had apparently had a number of other names during its lifetime. Its opening name may have been the Victoria (rather than the Victory); it became the Embassy in 1935, then the Astor in 1949.
Its first incarnation as the New Yorker started in 1962, may have been briefly an adult theatre called in the Tivoli in the early 70s.
It became the Festival in 1978, the Showcase in 1986, and gian give the name New Yorker in 1998.

The status of this theatre should be changed to “Demolished”, and the new Panasonic Theatre should become a separate listing. As jLangdon notes above, the old building, except for the facade wall from the second floor up, was torn down. I walk past the site on my way to work every day and watched the process this past spring. Even what is left of the facade is barely visible behind a post-modern screen treatment. The new Panasonic Theatre is completely new construction literally from the ground up.

In spite of this, every review of the new show (or of the new theatre, for that matter) that I have read in the local press insists in referring to it as a “renovation” or “refurbishment” of the New Yorker Theatre. As with the January 17 article posted above, I suspect these words are from corporate press releases and not original research on the part of any of the writers. Calling this a “renovation” or “refurbishment” is the same as if someone were to refer to the parking lot that covers the site of Toronto’s late-lamented Uptown Theatre as a “renovation”. I think not.

This theatre was also owned for awhile by Cineplex Odeon in the late 80s/early 90s. It had the exclusive engagement of the Academy Award winning Best Picture of 1987 “The Last Emperor” which I saw there in full 70MM. It was a great location right at the Yonge/Bloor intersection when that was THE centre of moviegoing with the Uptown 5, Towne Cinema, Plaza Twin, Varsity Twin, University and Cumberland 4. Those were the days.